ffdshow is a DirectShow filter and VFW codec for many audio and video
formats, such as DivX, Xvid and H.264. It is the most popular audio and
video decoder on Windows. Besides a stand-alone setup package, ffdshow is
often included in almost all codec pack software such as K-lite Codec Pack,
XP Codec Pack, Vista Codec Package, Codec Pack All in one,.

In Oct 2008, SVRT-Bkis has detected a serious buffer overflow vulnerability
in ffdshow which affects all available internet browsers. Taking advantage
of the flaw, hackers can perform remote attack, inject viruses, steal
sensitive information and even take control of the victim's system.

The flaw occurs when ffdshow works with a media stream (e.g.
http://[website]/test.avi). On parsing an overly long link, ffdshow would
encounter a buffer overflow error as the memory is not allocated and
controlled well.

ffdshow is in fact a codec component for decoding multimedia formats so it
must be used via some media player; the default program is Windows Media
Player (wmp). Due to this reason, all internet browsers that support wmp
plug-in are influenced by this vulnerability, such as Internet Explorer,
Firefox, Opera, Chrome...

In order to exploit, hackers trick users into visiting a website containing
malicious code. If successful, malicious code would be executed without any
users' further interaction. Hackers can then take complete control of the
system.